... Recent studies of diastereoselective conjugate additions of monoorganocuprates, Li[RCuI], to chiral γ-alkoxycrotonates and fumarates are disclosed. This methodology was applied to the shortest total synthesis of (−)-dihydroprotolichesterinic acid to date, but several attempts to prepare other succinate-derived natural products, such as pilocarpine and antrodin E, were unsuccessful. ...

... Status epilepticus (SE) is a life-threatening disease that has been recognized since antiquity but still causes over 50,000 deaths annually in the United States. The prevailing view on the pathophysiology of SE is that it is sustained by a loss of normal inhibitory mechanisms of neuronal activity. However, the early process leading to the initiation of SE is not well understood. Here, we show that ...

... Studies of tick salivary glands (SGs) and their components have produced a number of interesting discoveries over the last four decades. However, the precise neural and physiological mechanisms controlling SG secretion remain enigmatic. Major studies of SG control have identified and characterized many pharmacological and biological compounds that activate salivary secretion, including dopamine (D ...

... Epilepsy is characterized by recurrent synchronizations of neuronal activity, which are both a cardinal clinical symptom and a debilitating phenomenon. Although the temporal dynamics of epileptiform synchronizations are well described at the macroscopic level using electrophysiological approaches, less is known about how spatially distributed microcircuits contribute to these events. It is importa ...

... Dopamine (DA) is known to be the most potent activator of tick salivary secretion, which is an essential component of successful tick feeding. We examined the quantitative changes of catecholamines using a method coupling high-pressure liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection (HPLC–ECD). We also investigated the levels of catecholamines conjugated to other molecules utilising appropria ...

... The experience of foraging under natural conditions increases the volume of mushroom body neuropil in worker honey bees. A comparable increase in neuropil volume results from treatment of worker honey bees with pilocarpine, an agonist for muscarinic-type cholinergic receptors. A component of the neuropil growth induced by foraging experience is growth of dendrites in the collar region of the calyc ...

... The hyperpolarization-activated cation current Iₕ is an important regulator of neuronal excitability and may contribute to the properties of the dentate gyrus granule (DGG) cells, which constitute the input site of the canonical hippocampal circuit. Here, we investigated changes in Iₕ in DGG cells in human temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and the rat pilocarpine model of TLE using the patch-clamp tech ...

... Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is the most common type of epilepsy in adults. Of the animal models developed to investigate the pathogenesis of TLE, the one with pilocarpine-induced seizures is most often used. After pilocarpine administration in animals, three distinct periods—acute, latent, and chronic—can be distinguished according to their behavior. The present paper is the continuation of our p ...

... Prostaglandin E2 is now widely recognized to play critical roles in brain inflammation and injury, although the responsible prostaglandin receptors have not been fully identified. We developed a potent and selective antagonist for the prostaglandin E2 receptor subtype EP2, TG6-10-1, with a sufficient pharmacokinetic profile to be used in vivo. We found that in the mouse pilocarpine model of status ...

... Expression of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is under tight regulation to accommodate its intricate roles in controlling brain function. Transcription of BDNF initiates from multiple promoters in response to distinct stimulation cues. However, regardless which promoter is used, all BDNF transcripts are processed at two alternative polyadenylation sites, generating two pools of mRNAs ...

... BACKGROUND: Haemaphysalis longicornis is a major vector of Theileria spp., Anaplasma phagocytophilum, Babesia spp. and Coxiella burnetti in East Asian countries. All life stages of ixodid ticks have a destructive pool-feeding style in which they create a pool-feeding site by lacerating host tissue and secreting a variety of biologically active compounds that allows the tick to evade host responses ...

... One dimensional gel electrophoresis was used to separate proteins from the saliva of Rhipicephalus sanguineus female ticks fed on rabbits. Gel slices were subjected to tryptic digestion and analyzed by reversed-phase HPLC followed by MS/MS analysis. The data were compared to a database of salivary proteins of the same tick and to the predicted proteins of the host. Saliva was obtained by either pi ...

... Honey bees begin life working in the hive. At approximately equal to 3 weeks of age, they shift to visiting flowers to forage for pollen and nectar. Foraging is a complex task associated with enlargement of the mushroom bodies, a brain region important in insects for certain forms of learning and memory. We report here that foraging bees had a larger volume of mushroom body neuropil than did age-m ...

... To investigate potential physiological interactions between the transcellular and paracellular pathways of water transport, we asked whether targeted deletion of Aquaporin 5 (AQP5), the major transcellular water transporter in salivary acinar cells, affected paracellular transport of 4-kDa FITC-labeled dextran (FITC-D), which is transported through the paracellular but not the transcellular route. ...